


in a soft crux with our palms facing up

by orphan_account



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/F, Heartbreak, Post-Black Trailer (RWBY), Pre-Volume 1 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I’m sorry, Ilia.” A pause. “Blake’s gone.”Ilia forgets how to breathe.





	in a soft crux with our palms facing up

**Author's Note:**

> i've been trying to figure out how to write this since i first saw blake's character short - and, consequently, this was inspired by it.
> 
> one-sided tauradonna (on adam's part) is heavily implied due to the fact that this is set between the events of the black trailer and the first volume.
> 
> sorry for any typos.
> 
> title from [asido by purity ring.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ivaGaT2jq0)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning sun is climbing into its seat of high noon in the sky, and Adam comes back alone. Ilia squints and shields her eyes with her gloved hand, scouring the landscape, waiting for Blake to crest the hillside. But then Adam gets closer, and Ilia suddenly feels sick. She forgets her duties in preparing for her own mission—robbing the dust mines near Atlas along with several other elite Faunus—and heads toward him, fearing the worse. When she gets closer, she sees the look on his face: resigned; cold; _angry_.

Ilia fears the worse. Adam looks her in the eye from behind his mask, his hand on Wilt’s hilt. She’s afraid to ask: she can’t even get the words out. She can feel the eyes of other Faunus on them, more of them waiting for Adam’s explanation concerning Blake’s absence.

Finally:

“I’m sorry, Ilia.” A pause. “Blake’s gone.”

Ilia forgets how to breathe.

The shock doesn’t have time to set in: Adam says, “she’s not dead.” His tone is harsh—harder than she’s ever heard it.

“Then where is she?” Ilia resists the urge to reach out and shake him. Pain, panic, and confusion are beginning to rise up inside her, hardening and becoming a weight on her lungs with every breath she takes. “Adam?”

“She left.”

A beat passes. Then two. Then three.

“ _What_?”

Adam turns away from her and starts walking away. “She’s gone, Ilia,” he says, not looking at her, “and she’s not coming back.”

Ilia watches him go; she doesn’t realize she’s been motionless and gaping until someone touches her arm and asks her if she’s okay—if she needs anything. “I’m fine,” she tells them, but it’s as if her mouth was stuffed full of cotton. Blindly, she begins to move—away from the camp, towards the trees.

Anger wells up in her like a storm, yes—but it’s a deep, piercing sadness that turns her blue. She swallows the only question that comes to mind— _why? Why?_ The sad shade of near-dark covers her from head to toe; her spots are dark like stains; and she tries to remember how to inhale and exhale when Blake was beside her, but she can’t—she can’t _breathe_ —

Ilia spends the afternoon calming herself down and keeping to herself. Nursing her cracked heart, she cradles it and looks up at the broken moon as evening begins to give way to nighttime. The stars are out, constellations zigzagging like pretty scars—

Her vision blurs. It takes her a moment to realize she’s crying.

She recalls Adam’s demeanor—stiff, closed off. Hurt—no, not hurt— _betrayed_. She heard it in his voice, and then it dawns on her: there was a finality in his voice when he told her Blake wasn’t coming back. A sharp kind—a brutal kind—the kind she can hear when he’s charged Wilt and is about to strike. The sadness in her mingles with a sick feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.

Blake was Adam’s protégé, his student, his right hand. He depended on her to draw the attention of others while his weapon charged; he trusted her to have her back in any situation, in any fight—

Ilia pushes it down, dismisses the cold fear she feels for Blake (in spite of _also_ feeling betrayed) creeping through her, all the while knowing that it’s best if Blake and Adam never cross paths again. He’s changed over the years—Blake mentioned that once, a few weeks before, in a tone laced with a grief she hadn’t and still didn’t understood—and there’s the scent of blood in the air, now that Blake is gone. There’s a hole ripped in the fabric of the world of the White Fang and Ilia can feel it like it’s next to her beating heart—

The White Fang won’t forgive this. Not really. Not with Adam leading them under Sienna—

_Why? Why, Blake?_

Ilia is crying too hard to think about Adam, the repercussions of Blake’s decisions, or what this will mean for their future plans. Her shoulders shake and she presses her hands over her mouth; her spots turn red and blue, cycling between anger and hopelessness because of this loss, while the sadness sticks to the roof of her mouth and the back of her tongue.

The anger fades. As time passes, the others who were wounded by the news just as she was grow used to Blake’s absence. Adam doesn’t mention her ever again. The anger in her is reduced to something as small as the spots on her arm, and she’s eventually able to control her colors again—but she’s blue through and through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
